


The Sunny Side

by likehandlingroses



Series: Awfully Sweet [2]
Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Fluff, M/M, based on deleted scene, missing movie scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:15:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21852781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likehandlingroses/pseuds/likehandlingroses
Summary: Richard Ellis is confident that he's getting a feel for Mr. Barrow's rhythms, but an intrusion on a quiet moment together pushes him to reconsider the picture he's painted.
Relationships: Thomas Barrow & George Crawley, Thomas Barrow & Marigold Crawley, Thomas Barrow & Sybbie Branson, Thomas Barrow/Richard Ellis
Series: Awfully Sweet [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1569157
Comments: 28
Kudos: 386





	The Sunny Side

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the deleted scene from the film!

Richard flipped the page in his book, eyes glazing over as he scanned the lines. It was some Victorian trash he’d borrowed from Miss Lawton, one step up from a penny dreadful—and much of that step was in the binding. 

He’d really only taken it out of boredom. Even the dullest times could be weathered with something to read. _Anything_ to read, really. He’d spent many a train ride happily perusing week-old newspapers stuffed under seats. 

The trouble was, he wasn’t _bored_. Not really. 

He was trying to distract himself from the fact that Mr. Barrow had gotten his mind whirring since just about the first time he clapped eyes on him. 

He’d need a proper novel to manage that hefty a task...

“So when will we meet this new butler?” he said, giving in. 

Mr. Barrow hardly looked up from his crossword, a smile twisting on his face. 

“Trust me—you’ll know when he turns up…” he drawled. Richard waited for a beat, though he didn’t expect Mr. Barrow would say anything more before being prompted. 

He was beginning to find the pattern to Mr. Barrow’s rhythms. 

“I’ll try and prepare myself,” he said, half turning back to his book before adding: “He can’t be worse than Mr. Wilson.”

Mr. Barrow looked up properly, turning to face him with a conspiratorial grin. 

“That’s because Mr. Carson was only ever a butler,” he said. “If he’d been a _King’s Page of the Backstairs_ he’d be ten times the terror Mr. Wilson is...I promise you that.” 

Richard stopped holding his place in the book, moving his hand atop of it as he leaned just a bit closer—Mr. Barrow wouldn’t notice, with all the space between them. But it felt more comfortable, and if it didn’t do any harm...

Anyway, he was finished with pretending he’d get any reading done while he was sitting with Mr. Barrow. 

“The funny thing is, they’d have been better off keeping you on. See, Mr. Wilson didn’t mind you,” he said, smiling at Mr. Barrow’s look of surprise. “Probably because you’re young, and he thinks you won’t be any trouble for him...but there’s advantages to that.”

Mr. Barrow surveyed him, and Richard didn’t think he was imagining that the smile on his face was of an entirely different sort than the ones before it. There was a simmering excitement in it, tampered down by a searching—as if Mr. Barrow wasn’t sure if what he was seeing were true. 

But what did Mr. Barrow _think_ he was seeing? Richard knew what he’d ask for, if he could have his way. 

Mr. Barrow’s eyes landed on his own—and the searching and the excitement had married into something serene. As if—just for this moment—they’d agreed not to quarrel with one another. 

“It seems you’ve got a sense for the sunny side of just about everything, Mr. Ellis.”

Richard swallowed. Please, _just once_ , if he could have his way…

“I keep my eye out,” he said, evenly as he could. 

Mr. Barrow’s grin made Richard glad it wasn’t his turn to speak. 

“But I’m still not convinced about York,” he teased. 

Another edge forward. “And you don’t think I could convince you?”

Mr. Barrow’s pen fell from his fingers onto the table. From the way their heads turned sharply towards the muffled _tap_ , he may as well have smashed a dish against the floor. 

“I didn’t say that,” Mr. Barrow managed, picking up his pen with a ginger hand. Richard—who’d been pulled back by the resonance of the dropped pen, attempted an easy smile. 

He had to be smarter about it...you only got so many dropped pens before the message got through. And he wasn’t ready for that...not nearly. 

“Anyway, it’ll be more fun than sitting about Downton,” he said. “What’ll you have to do past your crosswords?”

Mr. Barrow’s face relaxed back into a grin. So no harm done yet...Richard tried not to look too pleased as Mr. Barrow finished filling in his next word before answering. 

Before he could, a clatter of commotion came tumbling through the doorway. 

“Mr. Barrow!” 

The first figure—a girl of about seven—raced to the edge of the table, her hands stopping her short. The boy—who was a head shorter—ran into her back even as he complained of his companion’s speed. 

“ _Wait_ , Sybbie!” he said, moving next to her against the table’s edge. Mr. Barrow eyed Richard. 

“You’d be surprised,” he murmured. 

He set down his pen, looking at the children with an expectant fondness, as if he knew already why they were there and was charmed by the idea that they’d tell him so anyway. 

He didn’t have to wait long. 

“Mr. Barrow, guess who’s here?” Sybbie said breathlessly. In one movement, both children were crowding closer towards him. 

“It’s—”

“He has to guess, George!”

Mr. Barrow sat back in his chair and pretended to ponder the possibilities. 

“It’s not the King already, is it?” he asked.

Sybbie and George exchanged a look of bubbling excitement. 

“No!” 

“It’s Marigold!”

Sybbie turned to her companion with an exaggerated sigh. “ _George_!” 

“He already guessed!” George protested. 

Mr. Barrow sat straighter in his seat. 

“Is she really?” he looked between them, egging on their enthusiasm. “This early?”

Sybbie nodded—she was doing a poor job of hiding her bouncing feet behind a look of exasperation. 

“She’s outside the door, I’ll get her...since George spoiled it…”

George hurried after her, smiling through his pout. “I did not!”

They disappeared back into the hall, bickering good-naturedly. 

“Friends of yours?” Richard quipped, though something in the joke fell flat in the face of the sincerity written across Mr. Barrow’s gaze. 

He’d gotten a good view of many things about Mr. Barrow, especially for such a short time. But the way Mr. Barrow warmed as he explained that “Master George” was Lady Mary’s son and “Miss Sybbie” was Lady Sybil's daughter...that was something new in Richard’s composite of the man. 

Something rather unexpected, Richard was almost embarrassed to admit. Mr. Barrow didn’t strike him as unkind—he seemed about as well-liked as any butler was. But Richard had pegged him as sharp and impatient...and those things rarely mixed with children. 

He’d have to look it all over again...the thought excited Richard more than was prudent. 

“Ah, there you are!” Mr. Barrow beamed at the girl who entered behind Sybbie and George as they clambered back into the servants’ hall. And this child was younger and smaller still—would they keep coming out, Richard wondered, like Russian dolls? 

Marigold didn’t hesitate to climb up into Mr. Barrow’s lap, and he didn’t seem at all surprised that she’d made a beeline for it. 

“We thought you weren’t getting here until this afternoon!” he said. 

“We left _so_ early,” she said, so softly that Richard had to lean in to hear. And he could hardly blame Mr. Barrow if he doted on her...there was something about a child who spoke to you as if everything they had to say was meant just for you. 

“You napped the whole way, I’ll bet…”

Marigold—who’d caught sight of Richard—nodded haphazardly as she stared. As Mr. Barrow followed her stare, it looked as if he’d only just remembered Richard was there himself. 

“This is Miss Marigold,” Mr. Barrow explained. “She’s Lady Edith’s—Lady Hexham’s I should say—ward...and she lived here with us until they snatched her away to Northumberland...and this is Mr. Ellis.”

“Is he a new footman?” Sybbie asked. She was edging towards the seat between them, and Richard supposed she’d take it over in another minute. 

“No, he’s visiting from London,” Mr. Barrow said, holding the top of the chair steady as Sybbie pulled it out from under the table. “He works for the King, as one of the Royal Dressers.”

Sybbie’s laughter just about told Richard what she meant to ask before she managed the words: 

“Do you put out his pajamas?”

“Only when Mr. Miller is ill,” Mr. Barrow interjected, meeting Richard’s eye with a smirk. Sybbie looked between them, but before she could puzzle out which question to ask, George found one of his own: 

“Mr. Barrow, why are you dressed like that?”

This struck a nerve, though Richard could see he was attempting to mask it. His smile was too tight, and he took a breath before answering, but his tone was about as sunny as could be expected:

“Well, today they’re letting Mr. Carson play butler, so I’m having a rest,” he explained. 

George frowned. “Why does _he_ get to be the butler?”

Mr. Barrow’s mouth twitched. 

“Because Lady Mary thinks he has more practice, so he’ll do a better job of it when the King comes.”

This placated George, but Sybbie looked as if she might jump out of her seat with indignation. 

“But he _doesn’t_ have more practice, Mr. Barrow!” she exclaimed. “He hasn’t been the butler in forever and ever! He won’t even remember _anything_ , I’ll bet!”

It was if she’d handed him his Christmas present early...Mr. Barrow leaned back with a smirk, pleased as punch in the face of Sybbie’s dismay on his behalf. 

“I’m sure that’s not _quite_ true,” he said, a distinct note of glee in his voice. “Now, where’s Nanny? Is she going to be very upset with me for keeping you?”

“She’s talking to Anna,” Sybbie said. “Is he going to be the butler for _very_ long, Mr. Barrow?”

Before Mr. Barrow could answer, George was halfway to the wireless, begging Mr. Barrow to please please _please_ turn it on. 

“It’s the knob on the—that’s the one, Master George…”

He turned to Richard apologetically as the music played, and George clambered up on one of the chairs, sitting up straight as a rod and swinging his feet to the music. (So there _was_ something of the repressed aristocracy in the house...Richard had been beginning to wonder). 

“You may want to find a new place to read,” he said, the note of apology in his voice fraying in the face of Richard’s amusement. 

“It’s dull, anyway,” he said with a shrug. “Miss Lawton lent it.”

Mr. Barrow raised an eyebrow. “She didn’t strike me as a lending sort…”

“She’s not.” Richard glanced down at Sybbie, who was tapping the table with her fingers in time with the music. “But her _books_ are her own, anyway. Can’t say the same about most of her things...”

Mr. Barrow smiled. “The sunny side.”

Richard hoped his own grin hadn’t grown out of hand. 

“I had better luck on the last leg of the trip,” he said. “She had the new one by—”

“—what letter goes here?” Marigold pointed to one of the boxes, and Mr. Barrow handed over his pen. 

“It’s going to say ‘Belfast,’ so that starts with a ‘B.’” He guided her fingers up the pen so she could hold it more easily. 

“Big B?” she asked, looking up at him. He nodded. 

“Look at you, knowing your letters…it’ll be an ‘E’ next up. Big or little, you can choose.” He looked up at Richard. “New one by who?”

For the life of him, Richard couldn’t remember. The scene in front of him had absorbed everything else—whether that was Mr. Barrow’s doing or his own latent yearnings emerging, Richard didn’t know. Whatever it was, it had unsettled him, though not in an entirely unpleasant way. 

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “That one wasn’t much good, either.”

Mr. Barrow laughed. “You need a better book lender, Mr. Ellis.”

Sybbie turned to him. “Have you read Winnie the Pooh?”

Never, in all his days, had a visit gone so wonderfully off-course, down a path Richard didn’t know could exist in such a house. 

“I haven’t,” he said, matching Sybbie’s businesslike tone. “But I’ve heard good things.”

“It’s _very_ good.” 

“Well, I’ve a niece with a birthday coming up—she’ll be about your age.” Richard _thought_...he didn’t see enough children to have a sense of such things. They were the same height, anyway...or they were as of Christmas. “Do you think she’d like it?”

Sybbie considered the question. 

“Maybe...does she like books about animals?”

“Very much; she’s fond of Beatrix Potter—Peter Rabbit and all the rest.”

Sybbie brightened. 

“Tom Kitten!” she exclaimed. “He’s my favorite—he’s so naughty, and his buttons go— _pop, pop, pop_!”

“I know the one,” Richard said, though Sybbie was hardly listening. She jumped out of her seat and hurried over to George. 

“George! Remember Tom Kitten?”

They were off, carried to a world of pretend Richard could only see the edges of. 

“And I’m Tabitha Twitchit, and you’re Tom, and she says, ‘you are not fit to be seen! I am _a-front-ed_!’”

“And I was going to be in a roly-poly pudding!”

“My _poor_ son Thomas!”

Meanwhile, Marigold remained absorbed in Mr. Barrow’s crossword. Richard saw Mr. Barrow ask her something—he looked up at Sybbie and George as he did--but Marigold shook her head. 

“She has to finish this first, she says,” Mr. Barrow explained. “She’s a determined young lady...that’ll be a ‘K.’”

Richard surveyed the room, still in awe—he had a sense Mr. Barrow was watching him as he did so. 

“It must be fun, having them ‘round all the time,” he said. “You’re lucky.”

“You mean to tell me this doesn’t happen at Buckingham Palace?”

Richard laughed. “This doesn’t happen anywhere I’ve ever been, Mr. Barrow. You were right—I’m surprised.”

Behind the teasing tilt of his head, Richard thought Mr. Barrow looked rather moved.

* * *

They sat next to each other at the table, each of them warming their hands around cups of coffee. It was a tacit admission that they weren’t intending to head upstairs for some time, though both of them made timid, unconvincing comments from time to time on how late it was. But no matter how quiet the servants’ hall became, the conversation started up again, rising as easily as it fell.

Now that he knew Mr. Barrow was like him—and now that he had a pretty good idea that Mr. Barrow _liked_ him—Richard didn’t mind drinking in every moment. 

“I half expect those children to come ‘round the corner again for you to dote on them,” he joked.

Mr. Barrow smiled, but there was something melancholy behind it. 

“I feel silly, sometimes. Being so fond of them.”

“I don’t think it’s silly,” Richard said. “They’re here, you may as well be fond of them.”

He paused before continuing, keeping his voice light. “Anyway, we have to do some substituting, don’t we?”

A shadow crossed Mr. Barrow’s face, and he looked down into his coffee cup. 

“Yes, but yours are family…”

He’d pieced together enough to know that Mr. Barrow was estranged from the better part of his family. And though Richard didn’t know it for a fact, he supposed it was more likely than not that the sister he’d alluded to had children.

He forgot how lucky he was that his own siblings didn’t flinch at having him over. How unlikely his own life was in many respects.

“We don’t all have that, either,” he said. “Most of us, even.”

“Suppose we take what we can.”

“Give what we can, too.”

Mr. Barrow didn’t answer, though he leaned just a touch in his seat. They were close enough that a move from Richard brought them shoulder to shoulder.

“There’s your sunny side again.” 

“You’re not bad at finding a sunny side, yourself, Mr. Barrow. Whatever you pretend,” he murmured, slipping a hand into Mr. Barrow’s. 


End file.
